grey hawk

February 12th, 2014

We return to the keep and have our wounds tended to. They have a new captain, Zorgon. Marzina asks for our tale. We notice she has an new owl familiar, Ahiloor. We go up to the 2nd floor and settle in. We relate our encounter with the dragon, leaving out the parts about the lizard folk disappearances. We spend the night and head back to Lower Eery the next day. Beltin leads us back to his family home where his mother comes out to greet us. She says he is looking pretty good and what was his father not telling her. Beltin tells her that we had an encounter with Illthain but she chose not to kill us. She is going to send for his father and make dinner. We visit with some of the towns folk who stop by as well as Beltin’s friends. Sanna relates our tale of facing the dragon with much embellishment which Beltin’s friends eat up, drooling over her “charms”. Parlax returns and goes to wash up before dinner. After dinner, he meets with us and says that Beltin should talk with Axon himself in person. The group wants to go with but Parlax warns that they should not show up empty handed. We should bring his favorite meal, a giant scorpion. We relate the entire adventure for Beltin’s dad. The next day, we stock up on anti-toxin and head into the hills. Obregon attempts to track down a giant scorpion. We run across a pack of 3 and move in to engage. Sanna and Obregon hit one with ranged attacks but it is not quite dead. Gonoan and Beltin move towards another and Beltin breathes acid on it. One of the scorpions charges Gonoan and misses but Beltin gets in a hit as it goes by. Another charges Beltin but misses. The third charges Gonoan as well and hits him for a little damage. Sanna hits both damaged scorpions with scorching rays and toasts them. Gonoan charges the last one, taking a hit in the process, and hits it. Beltin, Pike, and Obregon finish it off. We drag one of the carcasses with us and begin climbing. We come across 210gp in coins, and a scroll of heroism(5th lvl caster), 700gp statuette, 6000 gp tapestry, 1200gp vase, 1000gp painting. We reach Axon after a long morning of climbing. He is courteous and says he is proud of Beltin’s adventuring. He asks for the story and we tell him everything. He did not want to battle Illthain but Beltin counters that we didn’t either but she was waiting for us. Axon agrees with Nat that it was most likely a trap. He is troubled about the egg and reveals that Illthain has a brood in Ahlissa. The egg will likely be found by Illthain unless she doesn’t care. If no one brings it out, it may interrupt her plans. No way to tell. We are asked what we believe is going on. We let him know our concerns about Bronwins boyfriend. Axon tells us that we need to learn what the connections are. We talk about balance of power, in accordance with Bronwins boyfriend, the dungeon master and tiamat. Axon feels that Illthain is trying to recreate the lizard king of old and to unite all of the lizard folk in some nefarious scheme. We suspect that Illthain has allowed rumors of the male dragon to spread to prevent people from going into the ruins in the swamp as she searches for the mystery magic item. Do we feel that Bronwin’s lover is a danger? Is Bronwin being manipulated or manipulating him? We are told to find understanding of the power players around the area and always be looking for allies. Now it is his dinner time and we decline the option to share in it. He is concerned that Greyhawk is on the precipice of turning into a necropolis. The ruins seem to be infested with large amounts of clerics of different evil gods which are capable of creating a lot of undead. As we feel this seems to be his greatest concern, we decide to head towards Greyhawk. Sanna mentions that she would like to return to her hometown of Hardby at some point to visit with her father but feels that dealing with Iuz and the greyhawk ruins is more pressing. Axon has left by this point and we return down the hills. After going through Lower Eery, we head towards Greyhawk. When we arrive, we notice there is light traffic leaving the city but almost no traffic going towards. The gate is very crowded as apparently some of the other gates are closed and there are a lot of guards checking people in. The security scrutiny is thorough and martial law is still in effect. They are generally confident that they have gotten most of the undead rooted out but are still worried. We arrive during Brewfest and find the celebrations are muted. After returning home, we head out to sell our loot. It costs us 330gp to identify the magical items. Beltin and Pike use their charm to get us better deals and we get 100% of the tapestry, 90% of the statuette, 105% of the painting, 80% of the vase, and 90%of the ring, 5139 gp total for each of us! How will we spend it?